Thursday, May 1, 2008

April, the official Earth month, is now over. But what I love is that these magazines, many of which are still available, have a green theme. Amongst my favorite are the knitting magazines. Both Vogue Knitting and Knit1 have excellent patterns, articles, and yarn reviews pertaining to environmentally safe crafting. What's cool is that you can go to the Vogue Knitting website and download free patterns using organic fibers. In fact, there's a myriad of sites that keep up the earth-friendly knitting all year round. Check out PurlSoho.com. They offer yarns thatare soy, silk, and bamboo derived. Do-it-herselfer, Quircky Knit Girl, refers readers to a pattern that shows you how to recycle plastic shopping bags and knit them into a bag you can use at the market. Knitters all over the Net are learning to take the power of their needles in hand and use them to make the earth a happier, healthier planet.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

So I've seen Kindle, a digital reader from Amazon, and devices similar to it a lot lately. Amazon came out with their product back in November. I didn't think it would really catch on, but I read on their homepage today that they're having to work hard to keep up with orders. For book lovers everywhere, it's definitely exciting to know that one day we could carry many books at once in a small hand held device. Obviously, this device takes energy, but it uses a rechargeable battery. This kind of technology could be an enormous development in the fight to save trees and eliminate paper.

But there's a romantic spirit in me that is beckoned by the smell of an old book. This spirit thrills at the odyssey of exploring dusty shelves with 100's of faded bindings in a strange used book store. Think of not rushing out and getting that shiny new copy of whatever you were so breathlessly anticipating to add to your library.

Maybe there's some sort of compromise. Remember the library? That's a great way of not wasting paper in the production of books. One takes out a book, enjoys it for free, and returns it for someone else's reading pleasure. You're basically recycling. Or maybe book publishing should be once of the last sacred institutions that are allowed the privilege of using our planets trees? Maybe publishing houses should be green and actively participate in reforestation?

Monday, April 28, 2008

In honor of Earth Day both the Yoga Journal and Vegetarian Times have recently come out with "paperless" issues. Paperless meaning that you can digitally access and view the issue online. I applaud their efforts, great idea! Using Zinio, a company that specializes in digital magazines, one can zoom in, flip through, and see all the pages clearly. Sponsors are happy, because their ads are still visible just as they would be in the 3-D version.Sounds like this could really catch on.

I'm all for saving paper and using this medium more often. My only hang-up was that it took a while to load and sometimes there would be a delay in responding to my "flipping" a page. I'm sure the quality of this experience is contingent upon many things, i.e. speed of your Internet connection, how long it's been since you've defragged your computer recently, etc. Check it out for yourselves and let me know what you think. Eyestrain, anyone?